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Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoChris Russell | DispatchJudge Scott VanDerKarr hands Staci Reid a graduation diploma for completing the first phase of the Mental Health Program Docket. The judge oversees two other specialty dockets as well: drug and veterans.

There are no rules about speaking out of turn or using a little profanity. Everyone wants to
hear how your week went. While you’re at it, grab a doughnut.

Friday morning is reserved for Franklin County Municipal Judge Scott VanDerKarr’s drug docket
for nearly 40 opiate addicts. VanDerKarr’s is one of four specialty dockets in Municipal Court that
cater to people who wind up in the criminal-justice system and have specific needs. The strategy is
team-based, coordinated treatment to help people get better — instead of fining them or sending
them to jail.

Here, the judge is a treatment coordinator, supporter, cheerleader — and sometimes
disciplinarian. This, VanDerKarr said, is not regular court.

“This is what we do,” the judge told one new, initially resistant client on a recent Friday
morning. “If there was an officer here with a gun, I’d put it to my head. I guarantee you have not
been to a court like this before.”

More judges are buying into this new way to deliver justice. More than half of Ohio counties
have at least one specialty docket, which can cater to drug addicts, the mentally ill, drunken
drivers, veterans or prostitutes.

“I don’t think 10 or 12 years ago you would expect to see this,” VanDerKarr said. “It is the
trend, and you’re going to see more and more.”

Starting next year, the Ohio Supreme Court will begin certifying these dockets. Courts will have
to offer a “therapeutically oriented judicial approach” with supervision and treatment to earn “
specialized docket” status.

An advisory committee developed standards, which include having regular status-review hearings
for clients, written policies and goals, and a local advisory committee.

“In order to have effective programs across the state, we needed some standards that they all
abide by,” said Milt Nuzum, the acting director of judicial and courts service, which oversees the
specialized-docket division.

Most specialty dockets follow a format: Defendants plead guilty to their crimes and agree to
spend up to two years reporting regularly to the judge, who can order treatment, counseling,
meetings or, in some cases, jail time. At the end, the client could have his or her probation cut
short and record expunged, in addition to sobriety and a fuller life.

“It’s intensive probation, intensive interaction with the staff and with the judges,” said
Andrea Boxill, the specialty-docket coordinator for municipal court. “It’s advocacy and
accountability. That’s not how the court typically operates, and yet we’re able to show
cost-effective quality-of-life improvement.”

Nuzum, a former municipal-court judge in Marietta, ran a drug court for four years before he
left the bench.

“It’s very gratifying to you as a judge to know that your court, your staff, is able to help
people overcome something that is debilitating in their lives,” he said.

More judges are finding the same. The number of these courts has ballooned since Hamilton County
started its drug court in 1995.

The Supreme Court created the specialized-docket section in 2001. As of last year, 47 of Ohio’s
88 counties had at least one specialty court. Central Ohio has 20 specialized dockets, including a
drunken-driving court in Licking County Municipal Court and a juvenile drug court in Union
County.

One of the courts’ biggest champions is Ohio Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, who
will step away from the bench this year and return to her other love: mental-health dockets,
especially those treating veterans.

Stratton started the Advisory Committee on Mental Illness and the Courts in 2001. It was the
first such committee in the country. It’s easy to see why the concept is so popular, Stratton said.
“They’re problem-solvers. In some ways, the court system has become the solution to a lot of these
issues when these other systems aren’t efficiently dealing with them ... The judge brings these
people together. If the judge says, ‘Come to my office for a meeting,’ everybody shows up.”

One of those who showed up back in 2001 was VanDerKarr. He was enlisted to start Franklin County
Municipal Court’s first mental-health docket two years later.

He and other advocates have heard the criticisms, including that the dockets coddle defendants
and that it’s not the role of the criminal-justice system to deliver treatment.

“We’ve tried locking people up for the last 2,000 years,” VanDerKarr countered. “It doesn’t
work.”

The dockets save money in court costs and jail stays and end the revolving door for many people.
Clients who spent an average of 74 days in jail before the program spend two weeks on average after
graduation, Boxill said. That’s a savings of $400,000 a year for the 85 or so people who go through
Franklin County’s program each year.

In mental-health court, it’s a weekly huddle with each client, making sure that prescriptions
are filled and doctor’s appointments are made. Drug court is more of a group-therapy session, with
a dash of family intervention when someone screws up.

People cheer and smile, cry and hang their heads, depending on how the week went. Successes are
celebrated and failures acknowledged.

It’s an odd change for many longtime judges, who are used to doling out punishment, not
accolades. But those who have tried it are the biggest proponents.

“To use the cliche,” VanDerKarr said, “it’s a changing face of justice.”